The evolving role of the Chief Data Officer

So you’re tasked with your organization’s next big data migration. Maybe you’re moving to a new CRM system. Maybe you’ve just acquired another company and need to integrate their data into your system. Whatever the reason, data migrations are critical processes that many businesses go through. The continuing explosion in the volume of data businesses collect, store and use suggests that the trend of most companies engaging in some data migration project isn’t letting up anytime soon. According to a recent data migration study, 91% of companies engage in data migration projects.

No matter what industry you work in, what your job title is, or what your responsibilities are, it is almost a guarantee that you rely on data in some way, shape or form at least once a day; and sometimes you might not even know it!

Data is absolutely everywhere, and it’s quickly becoming the lifeblood of most organizations.

The real question is – do you use it to your advantage? Think about it for a second….

Businesses talk a great deal about being data-driven. Yet, using data for strategic purposes can often prove to be more challenging than it would first appear. Organizations today are at the center of a data dilemma, plagued by inaccurate and unstandardized data, information that is scattered across disparate systems, and a lack of defined processes and skilled employees. Yet, business users are demanding access to data with greater urgency than ever before.

This past weekend Stephen Cargill, Matthew Chase and I took on the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC). The PMC is a 192 mile bike ride across the State of Massachusetts from Sturbridge to the Provincetown. The purpose of the PMC is to raise money for cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and spread awareness of this terrible disease. The goal this year was to raise 48 million dollars.

The Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) is a charity bike-a-thon across the State of Massachusetts to raise money for cancer research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As a corporate sponsor for the event this year, Experian has had the honor of showing our support for this worthy cause in a number of different ways. The PMC, which has been held annually since 1980, will take place tomorrow, August 5. We have three employees who will be riding: Matt Chase, Wes Forsyth, and Steve Cargill, and several of our employees will be volunteering at the lunch spot we sponsored at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School. We will be cheering on the riders and passing out water.

Whether you’re working on a large data migration project, or simply trying to answer business questions with your data and having issues, Experian Pandora should be part of the conversation. We often hear from customers that they have disparate databases, leverage excel to house important data, or just have no idea how bad their data really is. This often leads to us running data tests on a subset of their data, which typically cannot tell the whole story, or is not statistically significant based on the total size of their database.

Data governance refers to the set of processes to ensure data meets precise standards and business rules as it is entered into a system. Data governance enables businesses to exert control over the management of data assets. This encompasses the people, process, and technology that is required to make data fit for its intended purpose.

Government agencies at every level—city, state, and federal—collect large amounts of data; that’s a fact. The challenge for many lies in the ways information is collected and processed. Much of it is locked up in departmental silos, on somewhat dated computer systems, and it’s hard to access for additional analysis or to share publicly. Much of it may have been collected on paper forms or input by busy staff with lots of other things to do. Yet in any commercial organization, your data might be considered like gold dust! Locked within those siloed systems are many nuggets of valuable information that can help improve the efficiency of your entire organization, help deliver better services, and help improve the lives of your constituents.

It’s 8:30 in the morning on Day 3 of the MDM & Data Governance conference and Aaron Zornes, Chief Research Officer of The MDM Institute, is about to introduce a panel of three experts who will address an intimate room of 100 or so attendees.

Organizations everywhere are looking to do more with their data assets, as well as better leverage open data and third party data sources for additional consumer insight. The good news is that there is no shortage of information available. The bad news is that wrangling and making sense of all that information can be very challenging. That is why we see 61 percent of U.S. companies stating inaccurate data is undermining their ability to provide an excellent customer experience.